At the time of publishing this blog, Christmas is just two days away and there are two sleeps left until Christmas.To be more precise….. There are just 38.73 hours left until Christmas day; Thats 2,324 minutes; Thats 139,440 seconds!

That really is not long and it is getting less and less as you read on. Whether you think that this is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you, however we can agree that there is simply not much time left to get any last minute necessities or do some last minute Christmas shopping. So think of us as an alarm clock, giving you a wait up call to get organised!!!

However, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a business that cannot be rushed. one cannot simply put a timer on it as there is no way of telling how long a website will take to be fully optimised. There are many different things that can influence how quickly a website can be optimised, some of them are that we can do, some of them are out of our control, some of them are down to Google (who aren’t to be pushed around and do things when they want!!).

What can influence the length of an SEO campaign?

• Google Cache- The Google cache is happens every couple of months, roughly every quarter. The cache is when Google spiders the website, caches it, indexes it and then gives all websites the mysterious PageRank, which the higher the better. By getting the website thoroughly optimised with links and content, you can exploit the Google Cache.
  

• Competitive Keywords- Use keywords that are not massively competitive to start off, E.g. Mortgages or Loans are too competitive to start off with, where as focussed keywords, E.g. ‘Fixed rate mortgages’ or ‘cheap loans in London’ are much much better for a newly optimised website to start off with.
• Niche Keywords and Markets- Focus upon an area that is not completely full of websites, E.g. ‘Loans’. Aim at something a tad more uncommon, E.g. ‘Cheap loans in London’, this will give your website a lot better rankings within the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and will gain it credibility before targeting the big keywords.
• White hat SEO methods- By only using the most ethical White Hat SEO methods, we can ensure the best possible start to your SEO campaign.

Within this entry to the SEO Manual (Search Engine Optimisation) we will discuss why the technique known as Link Laundering is unethical and considered unfair.

With all Black Hat techniques they try to ‘trick’ the search engines into believing that the website in question deserves to be ranked higher than the ones below as it is the most relevant. Laid out in Googles Webmaster Guidelines it states that anyone using unethical techniques to gain an advantage over someone else in the SERP can potentially be penalised or banned.

So why exactly is it bad?

The main reason link laubdering is unethical is because it dupes the search engines into thinking that the website is more relevant and beneficial to the users searching for a particular keyword than all the other websites. Depending on the niche targeted the SERP’s can get diluted with websites that are only ranking because of Black Hat techniques; quite annoying really when tryinf to find legitimate information, products or services.

The fact that the owner of the legit website can most likely be the owner of thousands of other spammy sites used to send links to and from means that the whole internet is getting full of irrelvant junk that affects a users experience whilst browsing and searching.

Many Black Hat methods are used by owners of MFA (Made For Adsense) websites which generate money by having users click on adverts. These especially are cropping up a lot around the web as webmasters try to earn an extra bit of cash whilst not costing much these days to start your own website/s.

Penalties

If Google finds out that you have been using unethical techniques to gain an unfair advantage the website in question will most probably be penalised. This may be a few places dropped or it may even mean a ban from being indexed. This means the website will never show up again in a Google search.

Once baned many Black Hat SEO’s don’t mind as they will have many other websties; but if it happens to a legit site then all forms of Black Hat SEO must be removed and a reinclusion request sent to Google.

Summary

The use of any Black Hat technique is unethical and can incur penalties. With Link Laundering especially links can sometimes be traced by to the legit site; especially if you know how to look for the links with internet tools such as SEO toolbar.

Penalties are dished out and it is ignorant to think that a website can get away with it.